Semiarid Soil and Crop Measurements with Visual Structure Assessments, 2018-2023

Northern Great Plains data from a USDA-ARS workshop series held between 2018 and 2023. It contains annual measurements of soil properties and spring wheat yield from five cropping systems, compared to Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS) assessments conducted by land managers. The data are applicable to cropland in a semiarid to sub-humid continental climate for specific USDA soil types.

Use Cases

• Correlating Visual Evaluation of Soil Structure (VESS) scores with measured soil bulk density and sorptivity
• Analyzing the relationship between soil organic matter, soluble C/N, and spring wheat grain yield
• Comparing soil health and crop performance across five different cropping systems with a common soil type
• Validating rapid visual assessment methods for land managers against standard laboratory soil analyses

Strengths

• Data spans a 5-year period from 2018 to 2023, providing temporal context
• Includes multiple soil measurements: bulk density, sorptivity, pH, organic matter, soluble C, soluble N, and C mineralization
• Compares visual assessments from workshop participants with instructor assessments and traditional measurements

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download

Provenance

Source

USDA-ARS Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory, Mandan, ND USA

Collection Method

Data collected from annual field measurements on five cropping systems and from half-day workshops where attendees applied the VESS method.

Time Range

2018 to 2023

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 22:48:25.977035; freshness should be verified

Geography

Semiarid to sub-humid continental climate cropland; applicable to USDA soil types: Grassna, Linton, Mandan, Temvik, Williams, and Wilton.